Tag Archives: MDGs

When checking out Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World, which argues that American education is falling dangerously behind other nations, I stumbled across Tony Wagner’s six-year-old The Global Achievement Gap. Wagner begins with a frightening anecdote — the type that could drive today’s frenzied assault on teachers.

A world-renowned molecular scientist sent two sons to a Cambridge, Massachusetts, school. One had a great experience, being inspired by an awesome teacher who used project-based learning and taught hands-on science. The other son had a “totally different” experience. His teacher offered none of the “fun stuff.” That teacher’s test prep approach to instruction drove the love of learning out of class.

Today, such an anecdote could prompt more calls to fire bad teachers. But, both of the classes in Wagner’s story had the same teacher! The difference was the increased pressure to conform to test-driven accountability had driven excellent teaching from the classroom.

I don’t have the expertise to answer the question of whether we have an overall crisis in public education, as opposed to the question of whether it is mostly high-challenge schools that are failing. Ripley and Wagner make a good case, however, that our schools do not teach critical thinking in an engaging manner.

I’m more impressed with Wagner’s methodology. He summarized international PISA data, for instance, in order to estimate where students of different nations stand in terms of access to instruction that emphasizes critical and creative thinking. More importantly, Wagner had conducted “walk throughs” of classrooms across the nation. He and his guests, including staff for the Gates Foundation, invariably were disappointed by the lack of engaging instruction.

Today, the discussion about paths to better teaching usually lead to more rigorous standards-based reforms. Amanda Ripley is just one of today’s true believers in rigor and competition as the driver of educational excellence. Wagner makes a good case that such a focus is a dead end. The normative definition of rigor was limited to the mastery of more complex subject matter, and that is an unworthy goal. Wagner defines “rigor” in the context of “In today’s world, it’s no longer how much you know that matters; it’s what you can do with what you know.” (Emphasis by Wagner.)

Advocates for Common Core and its more rigorous testing seek to speed up the educational assembly line so that more knowledge can be poured faster into the brains of students. Wagner recalls, however, that even in the 1990s the “half life” of knowledge in science and math was 2 to 3 years, and that now it must be less. Real world, it is impossible to speed up the teaching of so much more knowledge.

On the contrary, the way to learn and prosper in the 21st century is to teach kids to ask better questions. We need schools where intellectual give and take is nurtured, not classrooms where teachers are intimidated into teaching to the test.

Wagner closes with examples of three types of schools that nurture real rigor, the types of creativity that we need. But, all of those successes were rooted in the 1990s, before NCLB, the Obama administration, and the “Billionaires Boys Club” imposed the test, sort, and punish policies known as corporate reform.

We have always had plenty of soul-killing, drill and kill instruction. In the past, however, it was seen as education malpractice. Now, it is imposed in the name of “reform.” Not having participated in nearly as many walk throughs as Wagner, I have no idea if we, objectively, have more mediocre teaching in today’s classrooms.

If Wagner has a definitive opinion about that question, he is too discrete to express it. We clearly have wasted an opportunity to improve teaching, however, as tens of billions of new dollars and unfathomable amounts of energy have been invested in competition-driven reforms.

It was nice having an opportunity to remember Wagner’s wisdom. He is also discrete on another issue. What do Gates Foundation staff persons think during these depressing walk throughs? Would they now own up to the Gates contribution to undermining creative and engaging instruction? I wonder what could happen if they also reread The Global Achievement Gap with six years of hindsight.

Bitcoin may have been getting all the hype, but there is growing evidence that in a world without borders it is not virtual money that is the global currency, but a university education.

As national borders become increasingly permeable, it is becoming clear that more and more graduates will be competing in an international jobs market. And many consider that the best asset they can have is a degree from the ‘right’ university.

Figures released this month show that record numbers of children are studying at international schools. Data published by the UK-based International School Consultancy (ISC) group shows that 3.6 million children aged 3-18 attended international schools in the 2013/14 academic year, up from 3.3 million the previous year.

These schools usually provide internationally-recognized qualifications, as well as a degree of elitism, but most of all they offer an English-speaking education.

And according to ISC chairman Nicholas Brummitt, a key reason why parents forked out $36 billion dollars in fees for international schools last year is that they want their children to get into an English-speaking university.

The biggest growth for international schools has been in Asia, where enrolments have risen by 65% over the last five years. The UAE leads the way in the numbers of students at international schools (389,000), followed by Saudi Arabia (209,000), China (150,000), India (142,000), Pakistan (137,000) and Qatar (107,000).

But it is not just international schools. In a previous post, I wrote about the number of students coming to U.K. schools from outside the E.U., with access to universities both in the U.K. and the U.S. a core motivation. I also recently spoke with a U.K. school principal who told me that one of the biggest trends among his students over recent years is the increase in the number applying to study in the U.S.

The result is that around one in 10 undergraduates at U.K. universities come from outside the E.U., according to figures published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, with another 5% from E.U. countries.

In the U.S. the number of international students reached a record high last year, with an increase of 7%, although they still make up less than 4% of all students.

The allure of these universities of course is their international reputation. Whatever the standard of education, the reality is that certain universities are seen as more desirable than others. At Cambridge University, 17.5% of first degree students are international students, while at Oxford the equivalent figure is 13.8%.

According to university rankings specialist QS, the growth in international enrolments is particularly marked at leading universities, rising by 9% last year at its top 100 ranked institutions, compared with 6.5% among the top 400.

International rankings underline the dominance of English-speaking universities. Out of the top 20 in the Times Higher Education rankings, only one is outside the English-speaking world, while in QS’s rival list there are just two.

But while English-speaking universities are having it their own way now, it may not last long. Universities outside the English-speaking world are fast catching up, and themselves becoming international hubs.

QS reports that international student numbers at the 10 Chinese universities ranked in its global top 400 rose by 38% last year, the majority from Russia, Japan and South Korea but significant numbers coming from the U.S. and Europe.

Academics may dispute the validity of international comparisons – or even of ranking universities at all – but there is no doubt that they matter to the people who matter: students and their parents.

And the reason they matter is that a growing number of people realise they will be competing for jobs around the world with people from around the world. And if an education from a particular university can give them an advantage, then that really is a currency worth having.

The last Indian general election transformed Prime Minister Narendra Modi from an international pariah, accused of human rights abuses, to a superstar and raised hope that India had turned a corner. Prime Minister David Cameron praised Modi, saying he “got more votes than any other politician anywhere in the universe,” and investors and political strategists have India back in their good books.

But this new optimism is at best unfounded, and perhaps completely wrong. Even if we take Modi at his word — that he is a reformer more interested in building high-speed train systems than temples — it is unclear if the Indian people have the will to lift themselves out of poverty and disease. The case study of education reform, an area in which I have worked for more than a decade, is instructive.

India has over 400 million school- and college-age citizens, more than any country. Yet it has an educational system that has failed its people and simply has not taken steps to redress the issue. For example, when India last participated in the global PISA test, a standardized test of math, science and literacy designed to compare school systems across the world, it came in second to last among more than 70 participating countries.

Teacher absenteeism is 25 percent in government schools, even though teachers often receive the highest salary in an Indian village. The deficiency of public schools has created the largest private school system in the world, with some private schools costing less than $100 per year and producing outcomes far better than those from public schools.

Source: Corbis

Children study inside their classroom after having their free midday meal, distributed by a government-run primary school, in a village in Bihar, India.

How has the Indian government redressed the collapse of the public school system? For starters, India’s bureaucrats declared the PISA test unsuitable for India and withdrew the country from further rounds of testing. Instead of encouraging competition against decrepit public schools, the government has placed onerous operating burdens on private schools through the misleadingly named Right to Education (RTE) Act.

On the surface, RTE is a “pro-poor” piece of legislation as it allocates 25 percent of seats in all private schools for poor students who otherwise would go to public schools. In reality, RTE creates more opportunity for political patronage as the allocation of that 25 percent is influenced by corrupt local politicians in exchange for favors or cash. In short, RTE accepts that private schools are doing a great job by mandating that one-quarter of their capacity be reserved for poor students, while simultaneously punishing them through added regulation.

India Education Facts

Top Schools: Doon School (Dehradun); Cathedral and John Connon (Mumbai); Delhi Public School (Delhi); Mayo School (Ajmer); Welham Girls’ School (Dehradun)

In higher education, the situation is no better — contrary to the impression that India has a quality higher education system given the performance of its graduates abroad. This impression is the result of sample bias: Students graduating from the top 1 percent of institutions (nearly 200,000 students) tend to leave India in search of economic opportunity, masking the reality of the country’s subpar higher education system.

Overall, India has approximately 20 million students in higher education. The government, however, refuses to encourage private investment in higher education by mandating that it remain a “nonprofit” activity.

Meanwhile, private nonprofit colleges, often owned by corrupt politicians, take advantage of the excess demand for higher education by eliciting cash bribes for admission, a practice that is so prevalent in India that locals have invented a term for it: “capitation fees.”

Source: Getty

Students fill out forms during the admission process for the 2014–15 academic session at Daulat Ram College in New Delhi, India.

And what has changed since that last dramatic general election? The new minister responsible for education, Smriti Irani, is a 38-year-old soap opera actress without a college degree (despite her recent declaration that she has a “degree” from Yale based on a six-day course). Her first publicly announced reform to the educational system is a campaign to introduce buttermilk in public school lunches. Not a word against RTE or investment in higher education to build the millions of new seats of capacity we need each year.

How can India get out of this mess without money and develop an improved educational system? The answer lies in implementing Prime Minister Modi’s own mantra of “more governance, less government.” Unlike India’s health care system (the most privatized in the world), its educational system is not deregulated to allow for-profit investment in schools and universities.

The government claims it is loath to allow for-profit education in order to protect students from poor quality. But why is it acceptable to allow a profiteering hospital to perform brain surgery but objectionable to allow a student to take a math class at a for-profit university?

The Indian government should set up the accreditation framework and stand back. Whether the capital comes in the form of for-profit or nonprofit investment should not matter. Presently, the government is tying the hands of investors in the Indian educational system by mandating nonprofit institutions and, in doing so, limiting the amount of capital invested and the quality of education provided. India should learn from the successes and mistakes of other countries such as the U.S., Brazil and China that have deregulated education.

Deregulation is usually opposed because it comes with the threat of job cuts or closure of government-run facilities. But in this case, deregulation does not require government investment or reduced support to existing public educational institutions. It will, however, generate more competition for public schools and private “nonprofit” schools owned by politicians and influential industrialists.

I ask once more: Do the Indian people have the will to move forward? When it comes to education, that is really all it takes to solve the problem. And in a nation of nearly 1.3 billion people, surely there is enough collective energy and willpower to make that investment in the nation’s future.

We stand now at approximately 500 days from the initial target date for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals set in 1990.

These goals represent the most ambitious shared aspirations of humanity the modern world ever assembled. As we take measure now of the successes and shortfalls of this global effort, redouble our efforts for real, sustained progress in these final 500 days, and establish the framework for beyond 2015, I am inspired by what has been achieved and worried about what comes next.

Because of the Institute for International Education’s special focus on widening access to higher education and our research on global trends in tertiary academic mobility, we think the post-2015 development agenda needs to be prepared to take account of MDG 1’s success.

More students than ever are going to be ready for secondary and then higher education in the period ahead, but the capacity of most national systems to meet this demand is likely to be quite limited. Per capita investment in tertiary education in many countries is actually declining and only a few countries today have room for substantially more students in their institutions of higher education. Research is also consistently showing that OpenCourseWare and MOOCs are no substitute for university education.

The world will need to build more tertiary education capacity and also be more open. The costs will be high. But the costs of having the generation who benefited so much from the first MDGs join armed militias instead of going on to further schooling will be infinitely higher.

For now, we are heartened by increasing global access to education at the primary level, now at 90 percent enrollment globally. Still, there are nearly 60 million children of primary school age not enrolled. A final 500-day push — essentially two more academic enrolment periods — should raise us to greater than 90 percent, but those last 10 percent will be the hardest to enroll. We applaud the achievement of reaching greater gender equity in primary education, though we lament we are far from such equity beyond the primary level. In fact, it is movement beyond the primary level that is absolutely essential as we consider the next set of MDGs.

In today’s global economy, a primary education is not sufficient to avoid extreme poverty. Secondary and tertiary educations, both academic and technical or vocational, are vital rungs on the ladder leading out of extreme poverty. Educational access at all levels (primary, secondary, higher, and vocational) must therefore be supported. Creating opportunities and institutional infrastructures that will enable students to transition successfully from primary and secondary school to tertiary education must be a central tenet of the global education agenda.

Educational access, equity and quality of education are paramount to ensuring that students can fulfill their full potential.

Access to tertiary education is integral to the success of individual persons and nations in the 21st century. With increasing global labor market demands for specialized knowledge and advanced technology skills, tertiary education will become more important than ever to sustained social and economic development. Higher education plays an essential role in achieving other global priorities: the eradication of poverty and hunger; improving maternal and child health; increasing gender equality and the empowerment of women; combatting pandemic diseases; and ensuring environmental sustainability.

At IIE, we pay close attention to the relationship between higher education and international development. We partner with governments, international development agencies, foundations, universities and corporations, leveraging its international networks to collaborate on sustainable solutions for long-term development. Our work focuses on three things:

1. Educational and technical training and exchange programs.

2. Widening access to education and training of women, especially through science and technology programs.

For example, we are now piloting the Higher Education Readiness program to provide 200 girls in Ethiopia with the resources to not only complete secondary education but also to access higher education. With only a tiny percentage of Ethiopian girls now in university, this small pilot has the potential to make a big difference.

We support the conclusions of the U.N. High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which recommends the post-2015 framework for sustainable development “recognize peace and good governance as core elements of wellbeing, not optional extras.” IIE was founded in 1919 in the post-World War I era by scholars and statesmen who recognized that opening minds to the world through international scholarships and student and scholar exchanges would increase global understanding and peacebuilding. Over the past 95 years we have supported hundreds of thousands of such scholarships and exchanges in partnership with governments, foundations, corporations and other organizations. We have seen firsthand how these individuals have returned to their countries of origin to build bridges of understanding and improve good governance. Many of these individuals have also contributed to educational excellence and building educational capacity in their home countries, drawing on the knowledge and connections they developed in labs and classrooms in the United States.

The HLP also calls for forging a new global partnership “based on a common understanding of our shared humanity, underpinning mutual respect and mutual benefit in a shrinking world.” We feel strongly at IIE that our model of working with academia, governments, civil society, international corporations and foundations to support greater access to education and training and more international exchange experiences is consistent with this call for a new global partnership. Only a continued, concerted effort by all these partners will be enough to make the final 500-day push significant, and to ensure the post-2015 agenda is responsive to the needs of our new millennium. In IIE’s experience, increasing access to higher education will be absolutely essential to meeting these needs.

There is much to celebrate. A global reduction of extreme poverty by half in 15 years is a remarkable, unprecedented achievement. Yet, the spirit of the MDGs requires that we make these final 500 days count in whatever sectors we focus our efforts. And all of us, partners in sustainable development, must commit to a post-2015 development agenda that recommits to achieving the as yet unreached MDG targets, and builds on past successes to take us to the next level of sustainable development. The IIE is proud to join these efforts and to do our part.

Education is the best way any of us have to make the world we share a less dangerous place.

Aug. 18, 2014, marked the 500-day milestone until the target date to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Join Devex, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, to raise awareness of the progress made through the MDGs and to rally to continue the momentum. Check out our Storify page and tweet us using #MDGmomentum.

Melvin Estrada is a cabbage farmer in Chagüite Grande, a small village in northern Nicaragua. He used to sell his cabbages for an average of 20 cents each, struggling to provide for his family.

With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, TechnoServe helped Melvin and fellow members of the Tomatoya-Chagüite Grande cooperative increase their yields and grow higher quality produce. Melvin’s farm now uses a drip irrigation system and successive plantings, allowing him to harvest cabbage year-round to meet the demand of a national supermarket chain.

As a result of these improvements, Melvin has more than doubled his income. The extra money has helped him buy more nutritious food for his family and send his son to school. “An education is the best inheritance he can receive,” Melvin says.

Cherbourg school in Eastleigh had a great morning and mate an animated video about Education for All (which we’ll be putting up next week). Here’s a picture of Cherbourg’s schools council:

Director Mary Sinnott and Fundraising Coordinator Nick Evans visited Orchard Primary School. Their year 3 pupils wrote letters to David Cameron explaining why global education is such an important issue and used no technology like PC’s or whiteboards (or even lights!). Year 6 and reception pupils took a mile-long walk during school hours to know what it would be like to take a long walk to school.